Obama's 'shared sacrifice': another way of saying 'soak the rich'

The president's supporters and apologists have little left to cling to other than abstract phrases and themes from his speeches. We all know that's exactly what his jobs plan and his deficit reduction plans are: Just speeches.

The jobs plan he outlined to Congress weeks ago hasn't yet made its way to a vote. Meanwhile he travels the country accusing the Republicans of obstructing a plan that can't be voted on.

His deficit reduction plan is the same thing: A campaign speech.

Had the President kept the promises he made during his 2008 campaign, at least his supporters could hope that he will actually do what he is now proposing. But given how many promises he already has broken, it's safe to assume he will do the same again this time.

How can we trust him to cut spending if he won't even allow the U.S. Postal Service to cut the number of its employees in order to remain solvent because of its labor agreements?

How can we trust him to spend another half billion dollars on a jobs bill after the fiasco with Solyndra, a company that went bankrupt a only few months after he pumped a half billion dollars of public funds into it, but not before he allowed it to restructure its loan so that the private investors who were his campaign contributors got their money before taxpayers did?

And how can we trust him to build a new infrastructure bank when we see how much more his health care bill is going to cost us than he said it would? The president had no qualms about lifting the ceiling on the amount of bad debt Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could absorb and pass on to taxpayers, so how can we trust him to have the taxpayers' backs when he sets up this new agency?

The president is proposing to increase taxes on the rich in his deficit reduction plan. He also proposes to hit the rich hard in restructuring Medicare, either by charging them more for services or reducing those services.

So, the definition of "shared sacrifice" seems to be, "shared by everyone who is not in a union, shared by everyone who is not in the lower 50 percent of income earners, shared by everyone who is not part of the 'green' industry, shared by everyone who is not a big contributor to his campaign."

It's hard not to be cynical unless you still believe in hope and change.